Chick hatching experience at nursery this Spring!

Dear Parent/Carer,

Our nursery has received some additional ‘EYPP’ funding designed to support the education we provide to some eligible 3- and 4-year-old children. Using these funds, we will be receiving some eggs which are ready to hatch open into baby chicks! This experience is for ALL children at nursery.

The eggs will arrive on Monday 27th in an incubator. Two days later, the chicks will start to hatch and it will be an amazing experience for our children to see! The newly-hatched chicks will spend a further week with us at nursery, in their cosy heated home while they grow into little chickens!

What will our children learn during this experience?

Watching chicks hatch and being part of their care not only allows children to experience a real wonder of nature, it opens up numerous possibilities for conversations, including: how life begins, how babies grow across the animal kingdom, and caring for those we love around us, and in the wider world. We will talk about animals and their young, and where the animals will go to live afterwards, on the farm.

· We will introduce new vocabulary such as: hatching, chicks, cracking, incubator, temperature, carefully, fragile, delicate, yolk, egg. We will use describing words such as: shaky, wriggly, floppy, strong, slow, quick, wet, dry.

· Children will be supported to learn the importance of caring for others.

· Children will build confidence in taking on responsibility.

· Children learn from their own observations, asking questions to solidify learning.

· Children are encouraged to start to build empathy towards other living creatures.

· Lastly, every learning opportunity provide the possibility for children to understand mathematics! We will be discussing size, weight, position and distance – using comparison words such as bigger than, smaller than, taller, short, faster, slower, heavier, and so on.

· We will be reading chick/chicken-related books.

· Children will use all 4 of their 5 senses to see, hear, smell and feel.

· We will imagine what it is like to break out of a shell.

· We will also make some EGG-citing arts and crafts creations!

This forms part of the EYFS curriculum, supporting children’s understanding of the world, their communication and language, literacy, expressive arts and design, as well as mathematics and physical activity! We hope the children enjoy this experience, exploring the start of the life cycle from egg to chick!